Good questions NPro....

I dont think you need to worry about Yahoo. I have never heard of anything untoward with their software but I would never call myself 100% sure about any internet company. With Google, especially if you are using Adsense or Adwords there really is no getting around the secret data collection in fact... Everytime you search in Google a cookie will be sent to your PC so regardless of what precautions you take you can never be 100% free. The problem here is that there is no doubting that we need Google and as a result they have us by the short n curlies. Anybody here run a forum/messageboard? Ever wondered about that mysterious guest with an IP address that starts with 66.249 ..... ?

If you have that IP address following you round the net then I am affraid they have you

Not sure about Google Earth but given the fact that simply searching using Google search is is probably a safe bet that all Google programs have some kind of spyware attached.

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